WayAhead is this year working with The Mental Health Services (TheMHS) Conference to organise the MAD Pride concert.

The concert is part of the wider MAD Pride consumer movement, which started overseas in the early 1990s. One of the main aims of the movement is to reduce the stigma and discrimination people with a lived experience of mental health issues face in every day society.

“The MAD Pride movement also aims to reclaim the word mad as a self-descriptor. MAD also has different meanings as an acronym, Movement Against Discrimination and Making a Difference are just two. The movement looks at the culture of madness and tries to shift cultural perspectives about it. One of the ways that we here in Australia participate in the movement is through the MAD Pride concert,” said WayAhead Health Promotion Officer Asha Zappa, who is chairing the organising working group.

The MAD Pride concert is an hour and a half showcase of the artistic abilities of people with a lived experience of mental health issues. It follows the consumer and carer day of TheMHS in Adelaide from 28-31 August, with the MAD Pride concert to be held on Tuesday 28 August at the Adelaide Convention Centre starting at 5:00pm. The whole concert is geared towards MAD positivity and MAD pride.

“WayAhead is supporting MAD Pride this year because we believe in it. We want to do something tangible to show our support to end the discrimination of people living with a mental illness or mental health issue. We want to show the wonderful talents that people with a lived experience can do. Their mental health journey is a part of them – but it isn’t all of them and shouldn’t be the only thing that defines them,” said WayAhead CEO Elizabeth Priestley.